


All Over The Place

by kalliopeia



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Troy Barnes, Coming Out, Fluff, M/M, National Coming Out Day 2017, basically just coming out wish fulfillment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-01-16 06:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12337506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalliopeia/pseuds/kalliopeia
Summary: Six people Troy kisses on his trip around the world, and one person he kisses when he gets back.Written for National Coming Out Day.





	1. Quebec City, Canada

**Author's Note:**

> My first Community fic! *waves*
> 
> Chapter 1 content notice for mentions of alcohol. 
> 
> Also, if you ever have any questions about content, or are interested in a version with certain content removed, just let me know ans I am happy to do so. 
> 
> Enjoy!! Happy National Coming Out Day! Hope you enjoyed this, and I'd love to get any comments you have :D

1)

Quebec City, Canada

Troy walks around the block four times before he goes inside, and he mostly goes inside because by that point he’s dehydrated, and dehydration distracts him from the terror of the fact that he is walking into a gay bar.

(Okay, so technically it’s a lesbian bar, which maybe doesn’t count, but it’s a start, all right?)

It’s early in the evening, and the bar is quiet, some hockey on the TVs and a few people in the booths (mostly women, but a few men and some other people of unknown gender [Troy is briefly reminded of the dean, but nobody here’s even close to that level of campy] sitting and chatting in small groups).

Troy almost panics, but he’s thirsty, so he sits down and smiles awkwardly at the bartender. She maybe looks like a lesbian, what with all the flannel, except that this is Canada and everybody looks like that, and Troy’s not really an expert. Her hair is blue, though, and she has a nose ring, which might make it gayer. That and she works at a sports bar for women.

She raises an eyebrow at him, looking a little amused, and says something rapidly in not-English. It sounds like one of those wines Jeff drinks when he wants to look cultured, but probably isn’t.

“Uh, sorry, I don’t…”

The bartender asks again, in English this time, “What can I get you?”

“Just water.” The bartender gets it and slides it across the bar, where Troy sits down, a little more awkwardly than he’d like. “Thanks.”

To be honest, he hadn’t thought it out any farther than this. He’d decided he was going to go to a gay bar, psyched himself up about actually getting through the door, and had absolutely no plans about what to do once he was inside. Instead, he finds himself tracing designs in the condensation on the side of his glass, being wholly ignored by the clientele, and feeling incredibly out of place.

 “You look new, sweetie,” the bartender says, when she comes back around to refill his glass.

“Yeah, I got into Quebec this morning,” Troy says, and then realizes belatedly that she wasn’t referring to geography.

She smiles sympathetically at him and starts to move away.

“Wait, can I have a seven and seven?” Troy blurts, thinking that maybe the alcohol will smooth things out. He goes for his ID and fumbles it before handing it over.

The bartender makes a surprised noise. “Colorado. You’re a long way from home, Troy Barnes.”

“…Yeah,” Troy says, and it comes out a little bit choked. The whole kidnapped-by-pirates thing had eaten up a lot of time, and then the whole state’s-witness-to-prosecute-pirates had taken up way more, and the whole thing hadn’t been nearly as much fun as he’d’ve liked. He’s been away from Greendale for nearly nine months, now, and he hasn’t even made it off North America.

She fixes his drink for him and slides it over. “You don’t have to look so intimidated,” she tells him, and while he appreciates the sentiment he wishes she’d said it a little quieter, because a couple heads turn. “We’re a nice crowd. Canadian, eh!” She winks conspiratorially.

Troy smiles at her enthusiasm. “That’s cool. I’ve just- I’ve never been in…”

“Uh-huh,” the bartender says knowingly. A customer calls her over from the other end of the bar, and Troy sips his drink and forces himself to relax a little, checking out the artwork, which is fun even though he’s pretty sure he’s supposed to understand it.

The clock strikes nine, and suddenly the place is twice as full, the way that happens in bars. Another bartender shows up, pulling on an apron and looking tired.

“Hey, help me look out for the cute shy one,” the first bartender stage-whispers, catching Troy’s attention even as she conspicuously head-tilts in his direction. “He’s a little baby gay and I want to make sure he gets home all right, yeah?”

The second bartender rolls her eyes and says, “You know that the whole bar heard you say that, right?”

The first bartender glances around, looking embarrassed, and then shrugs apologetically at Troy. Troy’s reminded so much of Britta that he laughs into his glass and his chest hurts at the same time.

Both bartenders get busy with the crowds, so Troy sits back and quietly watches people interact until he feels a little calmer, a little more like this could be the sort of place, maybe, where he could talk to people and make jokes and fit in.

But it’s not, yet, he’s still jittery and can’t quite sit still and he’s uncomfortably aware of where he is, of _what_ he is, maybe, so he doesn’t try to talk to anyone.

“Hey. Troy,” the bartender says, leaning across the bar. “I just… sorry, about the thing, earlier. I messed that up. My bad.”

“You Britta’d it,” Troy agrees.

“…What?”

Troy shakes his head, giggling into his hand. “It means you meant well, and tried to help, and totally blundered it anyway. It’s basically a good thing.” Which isn’t really what ‘Britta’d’ has ever meant, but it probably should be, and distance is making Troy nostalgic, so he goes with it.  

The bartender smiles, a little. “Okay. Still, sorry. It wasn’t cool.”

Troy shrugs and stares into his drink for a second. He can see, out of the corner of his eye, that she’s still lingering.

“I’m probably just a baby bisexual, anyway,” Troy blurts suddenly, all in one breath. He rubs a hand over his face. “I’ve never said that out loud to anyone before,” he confesses.

The bartender blows out a long breath. “Okay, c’mon, I’m due for a break, grab a booth with me.”

Troy isn’t sure he’s ready to talk about it, can’t think of any more words that are ready to come out of his mouth, but follows her to a booth anyway.

“So you’re really far from home, going into queer spaces for what’s obviously the first time, and I’m the first person you’ve told,” she says, softly. “That’s kind of terrible. Is this an internalized homophobia thing or what?”

Troy giggles, again, because the only people he’s ever heard use the words ‘internalized homophobia’ were Britta, explaining it, and then Pierce, misunderstanding it and using it as an insult for about a week until Britta made him stop by punching him in the arm.

“I dunno, maybe,” he says, when he stops laughing and circles back around to the question. He could elaborate, tell her about how much Nana would whup his ass, or being a Jehovah’s Witness, or football, or being one of the few black kids in an uncomfortably conservative high school. But that’s mostly all in the past- just backstory, Abed would say. He can’t really think of a good reason why his hands haven’t stopped shaking since the first time he walked past this bar, or why he has to change the channel if Clive Owen comes on even if there’s no one else in the room, or why he kept a dream journal for six nights a few years ago and then stopped abruptly, or why even thinking the b-word sometimes makes him feel so isolated that it makes him cry.

The bartender bites her lip. “If you want, I can show you some spots around town, introduce you to some people.”

Troy shakes his head. “Leaving tomorrow, at dawn. I’m headed up to see the Northern Lights.”

“Oh, they’re gorgeous,” the bartender says, nodding. “Okay, well, promise me you’re gonna look out for yourself, okay?”

“Okay,” Troy agrees. “I… actually should get going. Dawn happens _so early_. …Thanks, though.”

“Yeah, okay,” the bartender says, standing up. Troy stands too, circling the table awkwardly. “Good luck.”

“Goodbye,” Troy tells her. She makes an awkward face and then throws her arms around his torso. She smells like pot and cats, and Troy grins and kisses her lightly on the forehead.

* * *

Troy and Levar get the boat ready to set sail in the morning, and Levar goes to bed. Troy has every intention of sleeping, at some point, but can’t shake the urge to talk to Britta, right now. He’s pretty sure that North Canadian Wilderness won’t have great Wi-Fi.

He opens his laptop, and finds that she is in fact online, and skypes her.

“Troy, hey!” Britta says as soon as the window opens. She looks half-asleep, and is petting Richard, who is one-eyed and Troy’s least favorite of Britta’s cats.

“Hey. How’s Greendale?” Troy asks, which is always his first question when he talks to anyone from the study group.

“All right. The chemistry department tried to mutiny for field trip funds and attacked everyone with soe kind of homemade chemical weapon. Annie’s Boobs got all covered in these weird rashes, but nothing else happened and the chemistry department is pretty incompetent because they’re being taught by Professor Whitman, so could be unrelated.”

“You found my monkey?!” Troy demands, immediately excited.

“What? No, I mean her actual…”

“Oh,” Troy says, disappointed, because rashy chemical cleavage is way less cool.

“Anyway, where are you at?” Britta asks.

“Quebec. Headed north for the next few days,” Troy tells her.

“Just Canada?” Britta asks quietly. “There’s really no way you’re going to be back after a year, is there?”

He’s told all of them this before, that the pirates extended things, that his one-year trip is looking like a year and a half, minimum, but the sadness in her voice kills him, a little.

“I miss you too,” he says instead, and it’s totally true, because he feels the missing study group like a hole in his chest. “How’s Abed?” he asks, because he misses Abed most of all, and because this is always his second question when he talks to anyone from the study group.

“He’s okay. He still misses you constantly, you know,” Britta says. “But we’ve got him, you know we do.”

“Thanks,” Troy says, and doesn’t say _‘But who’s got me?’_ because that’s pitiful and he knows it.

It’s quiet for a long moment, Britta sleepily petting Richard, who’s glaring at Troy through the webcam, and Troy knows that he’s way, way too far away for Richard to take out his one-eyed wrath on him, but the knowledge isn’t really comforting.

“Hey, uh, Britta?” Troy starts, finally. “If I come back and I’m… maybe a little different than when I left, you’d still… I mean, you’d be okay with that, right?”

Britta immediately looks more awake. “Yeah, Troy, of course. You’re my friend, and I love you. No matter what, okay?”

“Yeah,” Troy says, choking up a little bit, even though he knew this. “Yeah, thanks.”

He could tell her. She might attempt to educate him on queer theory, buy him a million kitschy rainbow things, and probably use him as an ally token to one-up her other social justice friends, because Britta is kind of the worst. But she’ll also be immediately cool with it, even enthusiastic, and willing to fight anyone who isn’t, because Britta is also the best. Of all the people in his life he cares about, he’s pretty sure that this secret will be safest with Britta.

He’s still not ready to say it.

“Is this about what happened with the pirates?” Britta is asking worriedly. “Because PTSD can have very serious-”

“It’s not about the pirates,” Troy reassures her. “Hey, we’re sailing early tomorrow, so I’m gonna go to bed. G’night, I miss you.”

“We miss you too, Troy.”


	2. Copenhagen, Denmark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you want a Winger speech about toxic masculinity? Because I wrote y’all a Winger speech on toxic masculinity. 
> 
> Content note: a bit of drunk flirting

2)

Copenhagen, Denmark

It’s three months and five countries before Troy’s able to walk into another gay establishment, but there’s a gay club in Copenhagen with really good reviews online, and is in easy biking distance of the hotel, so he musters up the courage and goes.

He still circles the block a few times, but in his defense, that’s only because the neighborhood doesn’t look that great and he wants a safe place to store his bike.  

(Okay, he maybe circles once on foot. The club is way louder than anticipated, and it takes Troy a few minutes to calm his nerves.)

There are a couple dudes in American flag t-shirts stumbling out when Troy completes the lap.

“Hey!” Troy greets, mostly because it’s nice to meet people who definitely speak English, because Troy definitely does not speak Danish, which is pretty okay because the whole language sounds like someone trying unsuccessfully to hock a loogie.

“Hey,” one of them slurs, looking Troy up and down. “Hey, you’re new.”

“Um. Yes,” Troy says. “…Is it obvious?”

The dude waves a hand. “Nah. ‘Been here nearly every night. ‘D recognize you.” He grins in a way that is probably intended to be a leer, but the effect is ruined by how nauseous the dude looks. Troy takes a hasty step back so he doesn’t get puked on. The other guy, who is only slightly soberer, gives Troy a good-call nod.

“Okay, well, I’m gonna go in the club now,” Troy says, enunciating carefully the way he does with drunk people and Chang.

“Careful about the hipster king, king of hipsters,” the drunk one says. “He’s gon’ try to f- ugh, I feel sick.”

“He is,” the soberish one says. “Do what you want, but he says that to everyone, he’s not gonna call you back, and he’s actually a terrible lay.”

“Thanks for the heads up. Uh, you should get your friend home, or maybe to a hospital,” Troy says, giving the drunk dude a worried look. The man’s gone greenish.

“Yeah, good point,” the soberer one says worriedly, and Troy figures that he has enough functioning brain cells to keep the both of them alive, so he goes inside.

It’s one of those clubs with music so loud it makes Troy feels like his bones are vibrating, and flashing lights that make him feel kind of dizzy, and really, really overpriced drinks. Jeff likes these sorts of places, and Troy’s been with him a couple of times, but they always give him headaches.

But Levar’s off meeting up old friends, and it’s either here or a long night alone on the boat, so Troy takes a deep breath and goes to get a drink.

He’s halfway through it, mostly just watching people dance, when a guy slides onto the stool next to him.

“I never do this,” the guy half-shouts- it would probably be a sultry murmur if he could get away with it, but the music is too loud, “but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, because you’re stunning. D’you wanna dance?”

The guy is wearing very expensive-looking sunglasses and a leather jacket that looks very cool but is probably giving him heatstroke.

“Are you the hipster king?” Troy asks.

“King of hipsters,” the guy mutters, probably, based on his lip movements. “My reputation proceeds me?” he asks, loudly enough to be heard. Troy nods. “Then… scratch the part about me never doing this, but you are pretty hot. And I’m very hot, and I assume you’re here for a reason, so you wanna dance anyway?”

He is clearly trying to be sexually intimidating, but Troy can still hear Abed’s voice in the back of his head saying _‘40% Zach Braff in Scrubs’_ so it doesn’t really work. Troy considers the offer for a moment, but the guy has a point about coming here for a reason. Plus, he thinks the ghost of Pierce might haunt him if he doesn’t at least try to explore this Alternate Universe Gay Jeff.  

“Okay,” Troy says, shrugging, and he forgets to shout it over the music, but the guy apparently gets the picture, because he pulls Troy to his feet and leads him to the dance floor.

They dance, and then hipster king buys him a drink, and then another drink, and then more dancing, and the process starts over once or twice, and then Troy is drunk.

Hipster king is close, and smells nice but fortunately not Jeff-like, and the music is, weirdly, so loud that Troy can barely hear any of it specifically, just thumping noise, Troy is jumping, dancing rhythmically just because it feels good in his body to do so.

There are guys dancing with each other all around him, some of them getting pretty hot and heavy right there on the dance floor, and Troy is right there in the middle of them, and hipster king is right up against him, which, okay, Troy should maybe at some point dedicate some actual thoughts to how he’s gonna handle that before the dude’s hands stray any farther, but right now he’s too caught up in the fact that he doesn’t feel out of place, right now. He’s drunk and this feels normal, as normal as anything in his life ever does, and he’s never felt normal and into dudes at the same time before.

“I think I’m bi!” Troy shouts, still barely over the music, in the general direction of the hipster king, because it’s nice to say it to someone who won’t react at all, and also because it seems like the sort of thing a dude with his hands drifting toward Troy’s butt should know.

“Fantastic,” the hipster king says, probably, through a smile, and tugs Troy in some direction. Troy goes, happily, still dancing until the hipster king pulls him into some kind of back hallway, where the music is suddenly dulled enough that Troy can actually make out the beat.

“This music is terrible,” Troy observes, belatedly.

“Uh huh,” the hipster king agrees. “But we’re not at the part where I ask if you wanna get out of here, yet.” And then his hands are back on Troy’s hips, and he’s crowding closer. Troy’s heart is just about pounding out of his chest, unless it’s just the house beat again, and the guy smells nice, and looks nice, and he’s a guy, and some sad part of Troy has been trying not to think about this since he was thirteen years old, and now it’s right there, and happening, and he could totally go through with it and he wouldn’t even have to tell anyone.

Experimentally, Troy leans forward and puts his hands on the hipster king’s ribs. The guy is taller than he is, and Troy is a little worried he’ll tip over if he goes up on his toes to kiss him, so he just grabs a hold of the guy’s leather jacket, which is sweaty and slick under his fingers.

Troy figures, what the hell, he’s supposed to be having new experiences, this is what he came to the club for, and moves his mouth to the guy’s pulse point instead, kissing him there. The guy makes a noise, and then there’s one hand on Troy’s butt and another in his hair, and it would probably be kind of fun if it was anything at all like what Troy wants.

“I’m not gonna do this,” Troy says, and the hipster king immediately sighs and backs off.

“Oh? Why not?”

“Too edible.”

“…I don’t know what you’re saying, but I think I’d be down for it,” the hipster king says. “Or, you know, would be, if you weren’t way too drunk to argue with about this, even though you’ve only had like three drinks. Wait, is this some kind of last-second gay panic thing?”

Troy considers this, and, okay, there is a small part of him that is currently freaking out, but it’s the Homecoming King quarterback be-a-man part, and he’s gotten better at ignoring it over the past few years.

No, he’s pretty sure that this comes to the much larger part of him that would really much rather be watching Inspector Spacetime or imagining this whole thing in the Dreamatorium while blushing or planning a pointless prank or otherwise doing something he wants to do, with someone he wants to do it with. (This is also the part of him that is pointing out that hotness and alcohol aside, Danish Gay Jeff is not the butt stuff he wants from life.)

“Nah,” Troy says, finally. “I just heard you’re real bad at it. I had fun, though. Thanks.”

“Mm-hm,” the hipster king says, looking cranky but still smiling a little bit. “Yeah, me too, I guess.”

* * *

Once he successfully bikes back to the hotel, only tipping over twice, he texts Jeff.

Troy: I misssssssss you1 hows Greendale?

Jeff: Greendale is Greendale. City College tried to take over again with some terrible doomsday machine, but they hired Greendale grads to build it and it caught fire in the parking lot. There was a slap fight instead and the dean won.

Jeff: You know, it’s been nearly a year. You were supposed to be coming back right around now.

Troy: I knooooooow ☹

Troy: I want to be back

Troy: Copenhagen is nice and im having a good tim but I miss you guys lots and id rather be there

Troy: hows Abed?

Jeff: It’s Sunday, so p sure you’ve talked to him more recently than I have

Jeff: He’s ok

Jeff: We thought he was having a breakdown but it turns out that Britta was secretly studying him for a psych class and he was messing with her

Troy: neat

Jeff: Yeah

Jeff: Copenhagen? You’re only in Europe?

Jeff: the top part of Europe?

Troy: Yeh the scientists in Greenland set us back even more after they found a new type of lichen on the boat so we’re behind

Jeff: When are you going to be back?

Troy: 6 mo at the earliest :`(

Jeff: If you want to challenge the will instead, just let me know

Troy: thanks

Troy: the trip’s been good for me in some ways, tho

Troy: I used to try relly hard 2b like u, u know

Jeff: Terrible idea.

Troy: Yah but your like, A Man u kno? Like you do all the right guy stuff and I don’t

Troy: and I tried realy really hard but it sucked most of the time

Troy: so maybe im done

Jeff: Troy. Read closely.

Jeff: Guys like me are, by definition, cowards. We try to avoid caring about things, because caring about things gives those things the power to hurt you, and because guys like me are very convincing, we convinced everyone else to make it cool not to care about anything. The “right guy stuff” is built by people who are so afraid of getting hurt or being vulnerable that they build up walls, and write rules about how to be so that they never have to risk messing it up, and then they call those walls and those rules manhood. But you aren’t like me, because you care, and you’re brave enough to admit to it even if it gets you hurt. You take risks that guys like me don’t take.

Jeff: The truth is that no one really fits into the mold, nobody fits all the right guy stuff. I fit okay, and I fake the rest. You don’t fit much at all, so trying to fake it hurts. In a lot of ways, it’s easier to take the pain and fit as best you can in the wrong shape for an entire life, but you’re too brave for that.

Jeff: So trust me when I tell you that you’re worth way more than the box. Your stuff is better than guy stuff, and always has been. Doing something different is brave, and takes more guts than most guys like me have.

Jeff: I’m still working on that one. Being strong enough to care, and get hurt, without hiding in the guy stuff. So I guess I’m trying to be more like you. Which is a way better thing than you trying to be like me.

Jeff: When you get back here, I’m taking your phone and deleting all of these messages.

Troy: ok. Glad I have them 4 now. Tho ill probably cry wen I read them sober

Jeff: Wait, you’re drunk?

Jeff: Did Levar Burton get you drunk?

Troy: no, it was hipster king

Troy: king of hipsters

Jeff: Is this whole manhood thing an actual crisis or are you just being drunk and weepy?

Troy: no its r eal

Troy: and the winger speech helped

Troy: thanks

Jeff: Go drink a glass of water, refill it, put it and some painkillers on your nightstand, and then go to bed.

Troy: ok ❤

Jeff: shut up.


	3. Cape Town, South Africa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes: mentions of the general existence of homophobia and racism, but not really much actual homophobia and racism. Brief discussion of religion.

3)

Cape Town, South Africa

Troy had never really thought about his own genealogical African heritage, didn’t know anything about it, and didn’t really expect to have any particular feelings about it once he was there. So it had caught him off guard the first time he was at some tourist trap- Morocco, then- listening to some tour guide drone on about the age of the rock paintings they were looking at, and Troy had realized that people who looked like him had been here and proud and building beautiful things for thousands and thousands of years, and had started crying right there at the exhibit.

LeVar, fortunately, had understood completely. Troy knows that Pierce didn’t send him with a black guide on purpose, would never have thought to do so, but Troy’s grateful anyway.

And then, back on the boat, he’d checked for gay hotspots in the area, which lead mostly to the fact that sleeping with someone of the same sex was literally illegal in Morocco. Troy had cried, again, with his fist pressed against his mouth to muffle the sound, because this one he couldn’t explain to LeVar.

So he kept his mouth shut for the next few countries, which wasn’t hard because he’s been mostly keeping his mouth shut about it since puberty, and the ache in his chest is familiar and he knows how to ignore it. The places he sees are beautiful, and the people feel like home in ways he has no idea how to begin to explain. It might be easier if he just hated it, but probably not worth it.

Troy’s not really even sure how much the dissonance is hurting until he gets to South Africa, sees a rainbow flag in someone’s window, and smiles stupidly at it in the middle of the streets for way longer than normal, feeling like the way he felt the first time he met the study group, or the first time he clicked with Abed. He looks it up, feels like Annie when he double and triple-checks, but South Africa is okay. He can admit it here, if he wants.

He cries, _again_.

Troy and LeVar are both sick of the boat, so they stay at a cute little bed and breakfast run by a plump middle-aged African woman who is constantly trying to feed them and who reminds Troy a lot of Shirley, if Shirley had a much cooler accent.  He keeps meaning to explore Cape Town, but then keeps staying in to watch movies and eat the complimentary milk tart, instead, because it’s delicious and he’s homesick.

So that’s where he is, in the little sitting room area just off the lobby, eating some milk tart, when he watches two women walk in holding hands, pay for a room with a single queen-sized bed, and then head toward it with their luggage. It’s all really normal, but Troy can’t stop staring.

The B&B owner catches him, and walks over.

“I don’t discriminate here,” she tells him quietly, but firmly. “If this is a problem for you, you can leave.”

“No!” Troy says, immediately. “No, I’m. I’m glad. I just. Uh, I’ve been traveling Africa for a couple months now, and it’s been. Not like that.”

“Africa is a continent,” she points out. “There are many cultures, many opinions.”

“Yeah,” Troy says, a bit lamely, because, okay, up until recently he didn’t know much of anything about Africa. People expect him to, occasionally, which is always a little weird and vaguely racial in the awkward not-quite-racist-enough-to-get-mad-at sort of way.

The owner makes the half eye-roll that Troy has learned is worldwide code for _Americans_ , or possibly _goddamn Americans_.

“It’s nice, that you’re cool with it,” Troy blurts. “Thanks.” And then winces, a little, because he’s not exactly practiced at this whole coming out thing, but that was not chill.

“Oh, I see,” the owner says, nodding. “You’re welcome. …I take it you haven’t told a lot of people.”

Troy shakes his head. “Nah. I’m new. To the whole. Bisexuality thing.”

“Ah. Well, there will always be those who can’t accept others, but this city is a good place.” She apparently sees that this isn’t really reassuring, because she adds, sweetly, “If anyone says anything in here, I’ll kick their ass.”

It reminds him enough of Shirley to make him grin- except, of course, for the obvious.

“Hey, have you always been cool with that sort of thing?” Troy blurts.

She squints at him, giving him a long assessing look. “No,” she finally replies evenly. “We all grow.”

“What changed?” he asks. He tries to stop biting his lip because he knows it looks ridiculous, but it’s back between his teeth before she speaks again.

“Someone I loved told me the truth,” the owner finally replies. She waves a hand at the cross on the wall- there’s some kind of religious artifact in every room that Troy’s seen so far, which he privately thinks is a little bit weird. “I’m a Christian woman, and eventually came to the understanding that if I could love a gay person without reservation, surely Jesus could. If God is love, then no love is a sin. Are you struggling with faith?”

“No,” Troy says, because he’s technically a Jehovah’s Witness, but given that he hasn’t done any witnessing since middle school and hasn’t really cared about it in nearly as long. Other than that time he accidentally became the figurehead of a cult, he’s not that into religion. Then, “Maybe,” he adds, because he’s not committing to non-religion and he’s not really chill with the idea of eternal damnation either. But really, “People I love are religious. And some of them have some stuff about gay people,” he finally tells her. “I don’t want to… If I tell them, you know?”

“I do,” the owner tells him, which is cool, considering that Troy’s pretty certain he makes no sense. “These people, do you trust them to love you, and work on the rest?”

Troy considers it. His dad and dad’s wife, probably not, but he’s not super bothered by the idea of that. His mom, probably, even though he’ll probably have to tell her five or six times before it sticks.

Shirley.

Yeah.

“Thanks,” Troy tells her. “That helps. You and your milk tart are great.” On impulse, and because she seems like the sort of lady who would like it, he picks up her right hand and kisses it.

“That’s nice,” she says, and Troy laughs so hard he cries, again.

* * *

Shirley’s one of the few of them who keeps to a normal sleep schedule, so he has to check the time difference and wait until it’s not the middle of the night in Greendale, and then re-check it when he remembers she’s not there anymore. When it’s finally late enough that Shirley will be up, he calls.

“Troy! Sweetheart, how are you?”

“Good. How’s- uh, Atlanta?” Troy stumbles over it, having momentarily forgotten, again.

“Fine. Other than Butcher’s hunt for his missing wife, melancholy, and occasional suicide attempts, things are so much more normal here. I forgot how surreal Greendale is that all of this normalcy is what feels strange. Is that how it is for you?”

“Uh, I’m traveling the world with LeVar Burton to get dead Pierce’s non-semen inheritance. We had boat trouble off the coast of Turkey that may or may not have been caused by- I forgot the name, evil mermaids,” Troy tells her. “How’s Aaaaaa-” he’d forgotten again, started his sentence, and now can’t think of another word, “aaaabed. I know you haven’t seen him, but I couldn’t think of another way to finish that sentence.”

“I can never really tell, with him, but he seems fine,” Shirley says, in her Indulging Voice. “How is Africa?”

“Good. I wonder if it’ll feel different, when people tell me to come back here, now that I’ve actually been,” Troy muses.

Shirley snorts. “You’ll have to let me know.”

There’s a long silence while Troy tries to think of a smooth way to broach the topic with Shirley, or if nothing else, something else to talk to her about. They’ve never been that close, on their own terms- the only thing they really had in common was the study group, and since neither of them are in it anymore, he can’t think of much else to say, but he desperately doesn’t want to hang up the phone.

“Troy, sweetheart,” Shirley finally says, “you clearly called about something. Are you going to spit it out?”

“Uh,” Troy says, succinctly. “Uh, I’m really scared you’re gonna be disappointed in me.”

“What happened?” Shirley asks immediately. “It’s all right, we all make mistakes. I’m sure we can fix it.”

“It’s… I mean, what if it’s not something I did? What if it’s something I am?” Troy asks.

Shirley’s silent for a second. “Something you are,” she repeats finally. “Well, you’re a Christian man, arguably. You understand what I mean when I say that you were made the way you are by the baby Jesus, and Troy, he did a damn fine job.”

“Okay,” Troy says quietly. “Thanks.”

“Troy. I’m proud of you every single day. Always,” Shirley says. “Mistakes happen and that’s okay, but who you are isn’t going to be a disappointment to me. You’re my family, and I love you like I love my boys.”

“Love you too, Shirley.”

“That’s nice. Are you going to tell me what this is about?”

“…Nope. Sometime, probably, but I don’t wanna right now.”

“O-kay. Whatever it is, it’s going to be all right,” Shirley says. “In the meantime, have a nice trip. I hope to see you soon.”

“Three-and-a-half continents left,” Troy says, a little bleakly. “I really miss you guys.”

“We miss you too. Be safe, we love you.”


	4. Seoul, South Korea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content note for Pierce, and all related Pierceness

4)

Seoul, South Korea

It’s December 10th, and Troy kind of feels the urge to mark the occasion by getting into a fight, but also really doesn’t enjoy fighting, so he goes to an English-speaking coffee shop instead, where he finds a bilingual flier with a rainbow in the corner. It’s a local university’s LGBT group inviting people to a Christmas party. It’s for that evening.

Troy talks himself into and out of it twice, but he’s lonely (he likes LeVar Burton, but there’s only so much he can talk to the guy without needing other humans) and a Christmas party sounds fun and there will probably be food, so he goes.

Although the flier was bilingual, the party is much less so, and significantly larger than expected. Troy spends a while wandering around and mime-greeting strangers awkwardly. Eventually, he finds a small group of English speakers- a couple Korean students, and some other international students from all over, and gleefully joins them.

“So is our insensitive grandpa here yet?” a Korean woman is asking nonchalantly.

“I have not seen him, but any time now,” another replies, and then they both get sucked into a conversation about a well-known and hated student body president.

When Insensitive Grandpa shows up, Troy knows immediately, because the guy is old, possibly slightly drunk, and complaining that it’s too difficult to tell the men apart from the women to a bored-looking woman with blue hair. Troy begins to understand more why other countries don’t like Americans.

It makes him a little homesick, and that’s enough to propel him forward.

“Hi, I’m Troy. I’m new here,” he introduces himself to the guy. The blue-haired woman gives him a grateful look and slides away. “What’s up?”

“What kind of Christmas party is this?” Insensitive Grandpa complains immediately. “I expected there to be more mistletoe.”

“Uh-huh. So you gonna leave, then?” Troy asks cheerfully.

Insensitive Grandpa stills a little, and then shrugs. “Nah, no other plans. And there’s free food.”

“The food is pretty good, for a campus,” Troy offers (although, chicken fingers aside, Greendale’s was always very terrible, so he might be biased).

“This is the catered stuff. The cafeteria food is a lot worse, and you have to pay for it. It’s an injustice!”

“Yeah? How long you been a student?” Troy asks.

“I’m not,” Insensitive Grandpa says. “Just like to bless the students with my wisdom, y’know. They could use a good mentoring. Talked to a kid the other day who didn’t know the difference between AM and FM radio. Can you believe that?”

“Uh,” Troy hesitates, trying to figure out an answer to this question that won’t result in a long-winded explanation about radio. “Kids these days?”

“Damn right,” Insensitive Grandpa mutters.

Bolstered by the right answer, Troy pushes a little, “So does the LGBT-” he stumbles over the acronym a little, and it doesn’t help that he’s seen like eight different combinations of letters- “group need extra wisdom, or what?”

Insensitive Grandpa shrugs, suddenly looking a little awkward. “Eh. Like I said, free food.” He hesitates, then adds with a familiar tone of fake-lightness, “Also, they’re good at keeping people, here.”

“Oh. That’s good. So you’re… not, then?”

“Pshaw. Nah,” Insensitive Grandpa says. “Friend of mine made me go to some kind of an ally training class. Did you know they have worksheets about being nice to gay people?”

“I didn’t know that,” Troy replies.

“Yeah! Anyway, it’s how I met these guys, and I stuck around. They’re pretty all right. Even the ones who don’t speak English. You know it took me four months to figure out I wasn’t in Beijing?”

“Wow,” Troy says. “That’s okay, I was in the Middle East a while back, and I tried to use a little Arabic, which it turns out was actually Polish. They were _very_ confused.” The upside is, after learning this, Troy is now one step closer to listening in while Abed talks in his sleep. “So you hang out around here a lot?”

“Yeah. I don’t mind the queers,” Insensitive Grandpa says casually, and Troy’s whole body flinches backward in reflex.

He went to a super-conservative high school, to a Jehovah’s Witness church, and lived with Pierce for a year. It’s not the first time he’s heard stuff like that said. In those times, this is one of the less offensive ones. Still, it hurts in a way he wasn’t expecting.

“Dude, that…” Troy says, but he’s never been good at this sort of thing and he doesn’t know how to finish the sentence.

“What? _They’re_ allowed to say it,” Insensitive Grandpa says dismissively.

“Yeah, but it still sucks to hear it,” Troy points out.

Insensitive Grandpa grunts, again, but he looks suddenly uncomfortable. “Okay, fine,” he finally replies. “Sorry.”

He looks sorry, kind of, and that does relax Troy a little. “Dude, you hang out with the LGBT group. There’s no way I’m the first person to tell you to maybe not say stuff like that.”

“There’s _so much stuff_ I’m not allowed to say now,” Insensitive Grandpa says. “And ‘queer’ is okay in some sentences and not okay in other sentences. I kinda lose track. Was that one okay?”

“I… think so? I’m don’t really know, officially, but that one didn’t suck to hear.”

“Okay. Good,” Insensitive Grandpa says. “You seem like a nice kid. I don’t wanna hurt, or… offend you, or whatever.” 

Troy nods, and a part of him wants to leave, but mostly he feels weirdly nostalgic, and like this matters, so he doesn’t.

“Do these people like you? Even though you say stuff like that?” Troy asks bluntly.

Insensitive Grandpa takes a half-step back, looking abruptly uncomfortable, but after a moment of hesitation he stays too. “Hard to tell. When I get it wrong, they tell me. And they haven’t kicked me out- they don’t really kick anyone out- and some of ‘em have said that they like that I keep trying. So that’s something, I guess. I know I’m not any good at this.”

“Maybe you could do more worksheets,” Troy suggests, and Insensitive Grandpa snorts.

“Things weren’t like this when I was your age,” Insensitive Grandpa says. “It’s all new. Better, though, I guess. For people like you.”

A shiver runs down Troy’s spine, because this guy reminds him so much of Pierce, and he’s- Pierce had accused Jeff and Britta of being gay, but not Troy, not even a suggestion. Pierce didn’t ever know, would never know, and if he was alive, Troy can’t decide whether he’d ever tell him. This is maybe the closest he’ll ever come to making that choice.

“Yeah,” Troy says, a little breathless, but only absentmindedly afraid. “Yeah, I’m bisexual.”

“Both ways, huh? Usually it’s only girls who do that,” Insensitive Grandpa muses. “Not that dudes can’t, of course. Just… I dunno. Never mind. That’s cool. Who’s better, dudes or chicks?”

Troy’s entire sexual history is some awkward second base with a cheerleader and Britta, so he doesn’t really know how to answer that.

“I dunno, I’m new,” Troy replies, shrugging. “I don’t really think it makes that much of a difference.”

“Huh. I mean, I figure it’s gotta be a tactical advantage, havin’ the same equipment,” Insensitive Grandpa muses. “Kind of a bummer for us heteros, y’know. I keep trying to talk to the lesbians about how to pick up women- figure they should know, right- but they won’t tell me.”

“No, we won’t,” says the blue-haired girl, who’s back now. “I’m off now. Bye, Grandpa,” she says fondly, and swings around to go on tiptoes and briefly press her lips to a smack to his bald spot. 

Insensitive Grandpa gives an annoyed grunt, but Troy can see him smiling.

“They call me Grandpa,” Insensitive Grandpa says, redundantly, once she’s gone. “I’m not that old.”

“They’re keeping you. You’re family,” Troy points out.

“Heh. They’re good kids, I guess. I could do a lot worse,” Insensitive Grandpa says.

The conversation trails off, after that, as they both meander apart to talk to others (and, of course, eat a bunch of free food), but before Troy leaves, he makes sure to duck back around to where Insensitive Grandpa is sitting on the stage and lecturing a Korean student (who does not appear to speak English, based on the blankly baffled look on his face) about disco.

“Nice to meet you, Grandpa,” Troy says, and ducks down to kiss him on the bald spot. “Goodbye.”

It’s nice, in a way, to finally get the chance to say it.

* * *

 

Troy wants to talk to Pierce.

He doesn’t get the urge often, which is for the best, as Pierce is dead and there’s nothing left of him but a cheap lava lamp on his brother’s mantel, but tonight he misses the old bastard.

So he does the next best thing and asks LeVar, “Hey, you knew Pierce pretty well, right?”

LeVar looks up from the cooking (god, Troy misses buttered noodles a lot, but LeVar refuses to make the stuff and Troy is a very bad cook). “Sure,” he says, and Troy knew this, because it’s been a year and eight months on this boat together, sometimes contained by crises- most recently, the quarantine after they were exposed to some kind of ursine flu. So they’ve talked about a lot of stuff by now.

“Did you like him?” Troy asks, because somehow they’ve skipped over that part.

LeVar snorts. “Did anyone, really?”

Troy shrugs, uncomfortable, because Pierce had been his family, and because he remembers the feeling of the king of clubs leaving his hand, because Pierce had taken him in when his own father kicked him out, and also said racist stuff that offended him on the regular, because for every awesome thing about Pierce that Troy can think of he can also think of a terrible one, and vice versa.

“Yeah, that,” LeVar says, reading the look on Troy’s face. “Yeah, I liked him. And I also disliked him, pretty much in equal measures.”

Troy nods. “Yeah. He was my friend, but.”

“Mm. I will say, though, I met Cornelius first- which I _don’t_ recommend- and when I met Pierce, I thought, apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Which is true, probably, except that the apple got up and _walked_. Don’t get me wrong, the man was still pretty racist, wasn’t good at any of it, but he tried. Never stopped working on being different than where he came from. The world is full of people who do a lot worse.”

“I lived in his house for a year,” Troy says quietly. “He hid me, once, when Cornelius came over unexpectedly. At the time it was kind of funny.”

“Cornelius never would have tolerated you being there,” LeVar agrees.

“Yeah, I know.”

LeVar hums. “D’you feel like he loved you differently because you’re black?”

Troy shrugs. “Dunno. I don’t think he thought so. I didn’t want to be around him, sometimes, because of it.” King of clubs, he reminds himself again, because he hates it when alive people pretend to have liked dead people more than they really did. Troy’s trying to be done with the stupid, shallow lies you only tell because you’re supposed to.

“Mm-hmm. There’s no denying that Pierce could be an ass.” LeVar hesitates, his hands stilling over the skillet. When he speaks again, it’s in a really even voice that makes Troy think he should narrate audiobooks, “Is this about the gay bars you’ve been visiting occasionally?”

“No!” Troy responds reflexively, but… shallow, stupid lies, and he’s trying so hard to be better, so his heart is pounding so hard it hurts when he adds, “…Maybe.”

LeVar nods, not looking up from the food. “If, hypothetically, someone he cared about came out to him, he’d- well, he’d at least think he was being supportive. He’d try.”

“He thought Britta was coming out once,” Troy contributes. “The speech was actually pretty nice. Didn’t stop him from saying homophobic stuff afterward, though.”

“Well, there you go. That doesn’t have to be good enough, but that’s the score,” LeVar says calmly, stirring.

“Yeah,” Troy breathes. He twists his hands and stares at them. “I miss him. Sometimes. He was one of us, you know? Even if we didn’t like him.”

“Sure,” LeVar says. “He loved you. People don’t will millions of dollars to family they don’t care about.”

Which Troy doesn’t understand either, because he wasn’t Pierce’s favorite, or the one who needed the money the most, or the one who was most like Pierce, or… much of anything, but he’s the one who’s here, sitting on a boat, about as far away from Greendale as possible.

“It’s good enough,” Troy decides, finally. It might not be, if Pierce was still around to be obnoxious and offensive and generally make the whole thing harder, but Pierce is dead, so at this point, Troy might as well be generous.

Still, saying it makes some knot in his chest loosen, as some weird aspect of this gets easier. Troy relaxes his hands and smiles.

“Thanks.”


	5. Melbourne, Australia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: I looked up facts about the bisexuality flag, found a pride dot com article about it, and there was a gif of Troy *in the article.* This isn’t relevant to the chapter, but I just wanted y’all to know that.

5)

Melbourne, Australia

There’s a rainbow flag in a bookstore window, surrounded by a whole bunch of other colorful flags Troy isn’t sure what to do with.

“Hi!” says the overly perky, nerdy assistant inside. Her apron is purple. “Welcome to The Agenda Books and Magazines! Is there anything I can help you find?”

“Um, hi, I don’t know,” Troy says hesitantly. “I just… I like your flags.”

“Thanks!” says Perky Nerd. “We sell those too, if you want one.”

Troy doesn’t, but glances around the store, sees no other customers, and asks hesitantly, “If you’ve got a second… what do they mean?” He gestures at the flags in the window.

She grins at him and swings up to sit on the counter, grabbing for a dish full of pins. The pins display the same patterns as the flags, and she pulls them out one by one and starts going through them. Troy doesn’t even know what all those words mean, although he just nods along and doesn’t ask.

He kind of likes the bisexual flag, though. It’s straightforward, and now that he knows what he’s looking at, he feels like he should have known all along. He rubs his fingers along the edge of the pin.

Perky Nerd grins at him knowingly. “Me too,” she tells him conspiratorially.

Troy smiles back at her. “So how is it?” It’s not nearly as hard to talk about it, now, at least to friendly strangers. Other than LeVar figuring it out, he still hasn’t told anyone he actually knows.

“What, bisexuality? Can’t complain, most days,” she tells him. “Even though that thing Woody Allen said about double the chances for a date? _So_ not true.”

Troy laughs a little. “To be fair, double wouldn’t do a whole lot for me anyway.”

“I don’t believe it,” Perky Nerd says immediately. “Guy like you? Probably captain of the cricket team, am I right?”

“…No. I don’t even really know what that is. I’m American,” Troy confesses.

Perky Nerd scoffs, as is the common reaction to this statement in the entire rest of the world. “Of course. American ‘football,’ then?”

“In high school. Yeah. I was… I was really not out, then. I’m not really out now, but I faked everything a lot more back then,” Troy says, and it occurs to him suddenly that he’s never really talked about this- sure, the occasional intentionally vague conversation with Abed, usually cloaked in some thematic or metaphorical subtext, but he’s never- he’s never said it, not like this.

“If you knew enough about yourself to know you were faking, that probably puts you ahead of a lot of teenagers, yeah?” Perky Nerd suggests.

“No,” Troy replies, immediately. “Nope, not even a little. I’m sure you were way smarter than me in high school.”

“I wasn’t dumb. Mostly,” Perky Nerd says, grinning. “But I wasn’t very self-aware, either. Grew into that in college. ‘Tis the season, you know. What about you?”

Troy shrugs. “Uh, I started to figure it out then, but I didn’t, like, start saying it out loud with words until after graduation.”

“Missed opportunity,” she says sympathetically. “But better late than never.”

“I guess. …So, I guess you’re- like, you work here, so people- they must know? Your friends, and family, and stuff,” Troy winces, because he’s so bad at words, especially when they matter. It’s like the second he cares what he’s saying, he has to listen to words fall broken out of his mouth.

Perky Nerd squints at him for a second. “You’re asking if I’m out? Yeah, more or less. My bubbe still doesn’t know, but most people do, now.”

“How- did that suck? I mean, was it…”

“Kind of,” she responds, shrugging. “I mean, there was a _lot_ of anxiety, and reactions were pretty mixed. But it was worth it. You’re not out, yet?”

Troy shakes his head. “Not really.”

“Well, we’ve got a whole section on that,” Perky Nerd offers, waving a hand to a bookshelf. The books on it look large and intimidating. Troy bites his lip.

“Uh, did you read any of that before you came out?”

“Yep,” Perky Nerd replies. “A lot of it.”

“Did it help?”

She shrugs. “Yeah. It made me feel more normal, you know, knowing that lots of other people have done this too. It made me understand the outside stuff more. Prepared me for some people’s reactions and helped me get why they happened. It’s not for everyone, maybe, but I never could have jumped into something like this without trying to understand it first.”

“If I tried to read that much, my brain would explode,” Troy tells her very sincerely. “And trying to get ready like that would only freak me out.”

“So are you getting ready?” Perky Nerd asks, and nothing changes, it’s not like the city of Melbourne stops to stare at him or really even like he’s any different now, except that everything changes, because it’s one of those questions that doesn’t have an answer until someone bothers to ask it. Troy’s not one of the people who ever thinks about things enough to ask those questions, but she is, and now that he’s heard the question there’s no getting around the answer.

“Yeah,” Troy tells her quietly. “Yeah, I think I am.”

It’s kind of a terrifying thought, because if he’s practicing, that means he’s going to do it, inevitably, and it’s not like he was ever planning on staying in the closet forever because he didn’t really have a plan at all, and now he does, apparently.

“It gets less scary as you go,” Perky Nerd tells him quietly. “I’ve never been as afraid as I was the first time. But it gets easier. My only real advice is to pick someone you trust a lot for the first time. Somebody who can help you through the rest.”

Troy nods, waiting for his heart to ease back out of this throat. He’s _preparing_. It’s different, to be thinking of it that way.  

Perky Nerd pats him on the arm. “Hey, sorry, but my shift’s actually over. Good luck.” She plucks the bisexual flag pin out of Troy’s hands and pins it to his collar. “On the house.”

Troy leans over and kisses her cheek. “Thanks.”

“Yeah! Good luck. You’ll be okay.”

* * *

Troy goes back to the boat and video calls Annie.

“Troy!” she squeals, immediately. “How’s Australia?”

“Pretty good,” Troy replies. “I have not seen a single kangaroo. Can you believe that? How’s- uh, how’s DC?” The wall behind her is cracked and half-painted pink, and definitely not 303. It’s a little unsettling.

“Okay,” Annie replies, and she sounds uncertain, but she’s smiling a little. “My internship is hard, but I’m doing all right, I think.”

“You’re the best they’ve ever had,” Troy tells her. “Nobody better.”

“The guy in the cubicle next to me went to Syracuse,” Annie admits. “My capstone project was trying to track down my professor’s pet ferret.”

“Yeah, but you found the ferret,” Troy points out, having heard this story.

“It had died under his couch,” Annie replies. “Anyway, are you really not gonna ask how Abed is? That’s a first.”

“I talked to him this morning, and neither of you are in Greendale,” Troy replies. “Am I really that predictable?”

“Yep. Anyway, as far as I know, he’s doing great,” Annie tells him. “Other than the lack of kangaroos, how’s Australia? Doing anything interesting?”

“Yeah. We went to some tourist stuff yesterday. Federation Square was cool.”

Annie nods. “Oh. Is that where you got the bisexuality pin on your collar?”

Troy’s hand reflexively goes to the pin, hiding it. “No!” he denies immediately, before wincing a little and adding, “No, I got that today. Somebody gave it to me.”

“Ooh, who?” Annie asks, leaning forward.

“No, it’s not like- an employee at an LGBT bookstore, that’s all!” He’s defensive, and he doesn’t really want to be defensive, but his heart is pounding and his palms are sweating and some of the sweat is getting on the pin because he still can’t move his hand and let it be visible.

Annie nods. “So, LGBT bookstores are on the Melbourne itinerary. Cool. Do you want to talk about it?”

Troy tries to summon the courage and fails. “No,” he squeaks unmanfully instead.

“Okay,” Annie tells him, and her voice is gentle, her eyes are soft. “Well, if you ever do, I’ll probably tell you about how one of my FBI forensics instructors is so pretty I kind of lose the ability to function whenever we’re in the same room.”

It takes Troy a second for those words to sink in, and when they do, he spends a second just staring at the screen, where Annie is blushing and fidgeting and can’t quite look at the camera.

There’s a little box in the corner that shows what Troy looks like right now, and they match.

“Really?” he asks, finally.

“Yeah,” Annie replies quietly. “I haven’t… said anything, to any of the others, yet.”

“Okay,” Troy says, and doesn’t say _me neither_ , because somehow he still needs the plausible deniability, the confirmation still sticks in his throat.

Annie lets out an awkward little laugh. “God, can you believe it was the whole apartment?”

“Yeah, I’m, like, eighty percent sure that Abed’s into guys,” Troy misdirects, partially to avoid saying anything else about himself and partially because he kind of wants Annie’s take on it.

“I’m a hundred percent sure that Abed’s into guys, because I nearly walked in on him rebounding with one after he and Rachel broke it off,” Annie reports cheerily. “He’s never said, specifically, how he identifies, but that’s definitely not a secret.”

“Oh,” Troy says dumbly, because okay, now that’s something he knows. Not suspects, from a few dozen nonchalant comments, but knows. “Wow.”

Annie giggles. “Yeah. You should talk to him about it.”

“Nope,” Troy says immediately, because he and Abed have talked about everything from their weird dreams to irrational phobias to deep personal fears to bizarre daydreams, but this is different, this would change things, and Troy is Not Ready for that, not yet.

“Okay. Are you done talking to me?” Annie asks, kindly, and Troy loves her.

“Yeah. Thanks, though,” Troy says, and slowly, awkwardly, drops his hand from the pin. He can’t tear his eyes from the tiny representation of the pink, purple and blue on the screen. If he was getting ready, before, he’s not sure what this is, because it’s crossed some sort of line but he still hasn’t said it, still hasn’t confirmed anything beyond a pin on his collar.

“Okay. Love you, be safe, enjoy Australia. And come home, okay?” Annie asks.

Troy’s not sure where home is, anymore, except that it’s not DC and he has a sneaking suspicion it’s not Greendale, anymore.

Still, it’s a promise he’s willing to make, because he can’t imagine doing anything else.

“I will. Love you too.”


	6. Santiago, Chile

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the delay, I'm in grad school and finals are happening, BUT I'm hopeful that the last chapter will be posted in a few days. :D

6)

Santiago, Chile

The gay club has loud, pounding music and flashing lights and half-dressed dudes dancing, and there have been times on this trip when that was what Troy wanted, but today is not the day. He wants to be wearing pajamas and watching movies and eating too much starch. He wants to go home.

The alcohol isn’t really doing its job and the music is giving him a headache, and Troy’s about to give up on the whole venture and just go back to the boat when he spots a guy in an Inspector Spacetime t-shirt who looks as uncomfortable as Troy feels, and everything in Troy’s whole being says _yes, this is what I want_.

(Except that it’s not really what he wants, and Troy knows that too, right from the beginning. It’s not like he thinks that skinny beige nerds are interchangeable. It’s just that he’s so goddamn homesick and even if talking about Inspector Spacetime with this stranger isn’t really what he wants, it’s a lot closer than the beat threatening to burst his eardrums and the random oiled-up guys who keep trying to grind on him.)

So he goes up to the guy, and offers (in fairly competent Spanish, which he got from his time as a pirate hostage and not from Chang), “Nice t-shirt! Do you want to get tacos and talk about the season finale?”

The guy agrees immediately, looking relieved and maybe a bit confused (it is possible that Troy’s Spanish is not as great as he thought), and they leave for a taco place Troy noticed on the way in.

His name is Luis, he is a data analyst for a local company, he once did a major school project analyzing the rapid change in CGI improvements in Inspector Spacetime as compared to other shows at the time, and he seems pretty startled with Troy eagerly asks for more explanation.

Nonetheless, Luis quickly settles in, explaining about budget cuts and computer advances, cameras and coloring, and it’s fortunate that Luis speaks fluent English because this would be all kinds of beyond Troy’s pirate-based Spanish proficiency, and it’s also kind of the best. Troy eats his taco between questions, and eventually Luis pulls out his phone and starts showing Troy screenshots of the show to demonstrate what he’s talking about.

After taco number three, Luis is winding down, explaining his conclusions. The slightly confused look is back, even though Troy hasn’t said much for the last couple of minutes.

“Why are you letting me do this?” Luis finally asks.

“Letting you do…?”

“I just overanalyzed Inspector Spacetime specs for forty minutes,” Luis points out. “Most people don’t want to listen to that.”

“I like Inspector Spacetime and over-analysis. I like you,” Troy offers.

“That’s the thing. Guys like you don’t like guys like me, usually,” Luis says matter-of-factly, “especially not when we’re rambling about technical nerd stuff.”

“I don’t care what guys like me like. I like technical nerd stuff. Also, I’m homesick, and you remind me of somebody,” Troy admits. And he does, even if Abed is generally a lot more confident about this stuff- and, Troy suspects, most stuff- and even if the absence of Abed still makes his chest feel like it might cave in and the reminder of how far away Abed is still makes him want to curl up and cry somewhere.

Luis smiles shyly and suggests, “Well, all right then. I did a similar project on Star Wars, if you’re interested. For the homesickness.”  

“Yes!” Troy replies, immediately, but he has a little more trouble staying focused now.

He _misses_ Abed. All the time, and not any less now than when he first left. And he’s glad he did this, but he’ll be so glad when it’s done and he’s back. He likes Abed, and he likes the person he is because of Abed. Sometimes he thinks about the person he’d be if he’d never met Abed, or if he’d been just a little more afraid of being the person he wanted to be, and that’s probably his darkest timeline (although not dice-related, and therefore obviously not canon). Troy hated who he was in high school, even then, and it was still so hard, and so scary, to put down that letterman’s jacket. He might never have, if Abed hadn’t made it worth it.

And suddenly it clicks.

“You’re not listening to this,” Luis points out uncertainly.

“Sorry. I am _having an epiphany_ ,” Troy announces breathlessly. “I- I’m in love with my best friend.” Luis blinks and leans back. “No, that’s not the epiphany, I already knew that, it’s just- he’s- when I met him I was pretending to be someone totally else and he was the person who made me feel safe enough and like it was worth it to do something better, because he’s- he’s _himself_ , even when other people have problems with him, and I’ve always wanted to be more like that. He’s- he’s- I’m…” Troy trails off, unable to find anything to say about it in either English or Spanish that explains it, that can sum up the thousands of tiny necessary moments that built this thing between him and Abed.

“So what was the epiphany?” Luis asks.

“That he’s the first person I was ever okay being myself around before,” Troy says breathlessly, still fumbling for words. “He’s really good at being himself in a way most people kind of aren’t, and he helped me be better at it too. I’ve never felt better about being- I dunno, real, with anyone else. I haven’t come out to him yet, because I wasn’t ready. The epiphany is that I’m ready now. I’m not scared. It’s time.”

Luis nods slowly. “Okay. Congratulations? I don’t know what the polite thing to say is in this situation.”

“That’s okay, I don’t expect you to. Sorry, I’m being a really terrible… is this a date? I dunno, but whatever it is, I’m being real bad at it.”

“I was not sure either,” Luis confesses, shrugging, “but at this point, probably not.”

“I- you remind me of him, a little,” Troy says without being really sure why.

Luis blinks, looking a little surprised but mostly skeptical. “I… what? Guys like you don’t fall in love with guys like me.”

“I can’t speak for other people, but I’m glad I did.” There’s no physical reason for Troy to be breathless, but his body has apparently decided that that should be happening.

“Guys like me…” Luis mutters quietly, in Spanish, before trailing off and looking away.

“You are great and interesting and I would have happily taken you on a tacos and TV actual date if I wasn’t-” And this is probably true, but it’s also such an unthinkable scenario that the Dreamatorium in his brain hits an error code and he can’t finish the hypothetical. “Also,” Troy adds thoughtfully, “if you think that ‘guys like me’ are normal guys, you are… badly mislead.”

Luis grins. “Fair enough. You need to go call him right now, yes?”

“Yep,” Troy admits. “Sorry for being the worst date in the world.”

“And here I thought I was the worst date in the world,” Luis says, laughing.

“No, this was fun, I just… Yeah, again, sorry,” Troy offers, standing.

Luis stands too and grins shyly at him. “Yes, this was fun,” he says quietly. “I wonder, if things had been different…” He trails off and leans over the table, catching a hand in Troy’s shirt and kissing him, briefly, chastely, just a brush of warm lips against Troy’s. Luis lets go and smiles at him. “Go, then. Good luck.”

* * *

Troy gets back to the boat, double-checks to make sure that LeVar is still off signing autographs, checks the time, and skypes Abed.

“Hey,” Abed says, answering immediately, and Troy grins at him.

“Hey! I miss you. How’s LA?”

“Good. The show’s going really well, and I met Jessica Camacho this morning. How’s Chile?”

“That sounds awesome. Chile’s good. I want to tell you something,” Troy says, and he’s nervous, pretty much as nervous as he’s ever been doing anything. But he’s also excited, because this- this feels like bailing on the football scholarship, like applying to Greendale (by sending them his name and a check), like taking off his letterman jacket, like asking the weird guy in the Kickpuncher t-shirt if he wanted to work on the Spanish homework together, like accepting that guy’s invitation to a study group, even like bittersweetly sailing away. It feels like one of the things he has to do to be the person he wants to be.

“Okay,” Abed says, looking suddenly a little anxious. “Uh, do you want to do that now?”

“I’m bisexual,” Troy tells him, with his heart threatening to burst out of his throat and make a mess all over the floor.

Abed nods. “Oh. Well, that does explain about Clive Owen.”

Troy giggles, a little bit hysterically, and the relief hits hard. “It totally does.”

“Okay,” Abed says. A moment later, like an afterthought, he adds, “Me too. Something similar, anyway.”

“Yeah?” Troy asks, kind of breathlessly, and giggles again when Abed nods.

“I don’t really get the point of gender,” Abed reports matter-of-factly. “It’s one of those things everybody understands what it is and why we have it except me, but none of them can explain it.”

“…Whoa,” Troy says slowly, trying to parse that. “You just wrinkled my brain.”

Abed smirks a little. It fades, and then Abed confesses, “I was afraid you were going to say that you weren’t coming back.”

“I’m coming back,” Troy promises immediately, because he’s been desperately looking forward to it every day since he left. “I’m coming home. I hope soon.” (He’d stopped giving estimated dates a while back, but there was recently another setback when LeVar was spontaneously hired to narrate a documentary about the tragic endangerment of the adorable Antarctic Fur Seal, which he’d expected to last a day and had lasted for three weeks, but the seal pups were just too cute to abandon, even after they turned out to not actually be endangered.)

“To Greendale?” Abed asks quietly.

“I… maybe,” Troy says. Greendale was his home, but it doesn’t feel like it is anymore. His dad and stepmother live there, but Troy doesn’t even like them, hasn’t really felt at home with them in years. Jeff and Britta are still there, and they’re his family and he loves them, but that’s not really what home is either.

Troy thinks he might be homesick for Los Angeles. He’s never _been_ to Los Angeles, not once. And that’s the sort of illogical tangle he can’t explain to himself, let alone Abed, so he doesn’t say it.

“I miss you,” Abed says quietly. And a half second later, clearly on the same train of thought, “I met Bruce Willis last week.”

Troy knows this, because Abed had sent him about four dozen photos of them when it happened, and they had excitedly discussed it at length the day after.

“Yeah,” Troy prompts.

“You’re my favorite person,” Abed finally says, hesitatingly, his eyes fixed somewhere below and to the left of the camera. “The best person I’ve ever met, including Bruce Willis. So, I… I know it would make _sense_. If you found something, or met someone, or something else better than Greendale. If you wanted to stay and not come back. I know it’s selfish to ask. But I want you to come back.”

“You’re my favorite person too,” Troy replies, immediately, because it hurts to hear and he doesn’t want Abed to think that for one more second. “I’ve been on every single continent now, and you’re my favorite person. I’ve met a lot of people, and I don’t like any of them more than you, and all I want is to be back there.” Troy starts to choke up, a little, can feel the roughness in his throat and hear the thickness in his voice, and doesn’t bother hide it, because this is Abed. “I miss it so much. All the time. And I’m glad I went, because I didn’t want to be the guy who can’t leave home, but I also don’t want to be the guy who doesn’t have a home to go back to. I want to go back. I miss you too. So… so you can ask for whatever, because it’s not selfish if I want it too, and I _do_.”

That last part is out of Troy’s mouth for about thirty seconds before his brain processes what he just said, and what he just _meant_. And he did mean it, is the thing, except that he knows that it’s not the sort of thing Abed will pick up on unless Troy either announces it outright or codes in movie tropes, and that was neither of those things. So the half-confession just passes, unnoticed.

And then LeVar is clattering on the deck above Troy, calling for assistance with the groceries.

“I have to go,” Troy says quietly. “I’ll talk to you soon, okay?”

“Yeah,” Abed says. “I should have news about the show in a few days. Okay, talk to you later.”

Troy clears his throat and then they both sing, in perfect rhythm, “Troy and Abed hanging uuuuup now!”


	7. Los Angeles, U.S.A.

1)

Los Angeles, U.S.A.

It’s been nearly three years since Troy left Greendale, and he cries a little when he steps off the boat and onto American soil.

He’d had daydreams about running up to the study group on the beach, possibly ditching out of the boat a few feet from shore and splashing through the waves in a cinematic way Abed would appreciate. It turns out that US seaports are too similar to all the other seaports in having all kinds of customs regulations and stuff, so instead he will be reuniting with them in some front office instead. They are out of the way of everything else, all the other boats and passengers and cargo, because LeVar’s a celebrity and always pulls some strings when they have to do this. So the office is stuffy and bureaucratic but not crowded.

The custody process is so tedious Troy can barely stand it, because he knows that his people are only yards away from him, and he shifts from foot to foot and tries to answer the readmittance questions as best he can.

“The complete lunatics in the lobby- are they for you?” the customs officer asks.

Troy grins immediately. “Yeah. Yeah, they’re mine.”

It’s LA, so Abed was already in the area, and everyone else flew out to welcome him back. Jeff was roundly mocked for only just now finally leaving the state of Colorado. They’re here. His mom couldn’t make it, and he hasn’t actually bothered to call his dad yet, but his family is here.

“All right, Mr. Barnes, you’re good to go,” the officer says, stamping his passport and handing it back. “Your welcoming party is through that door, down the hallway, to the right.”

Troy and Abed had made a plan, about four days after Troy left, to reunite by doing their handshake and singing “Troy and Abed reuniiiiiiited!” Troy’s been thinking about it for days.

But as soon as he turns right and sees Abed, sees all of them, the thought flies out of his head completely.

“Troy!” Abed exclaims, lighting up, and then Troy is sprinting toward them. He flings his arms around Abed, knocking him several steps backward until they’re both caught by Shirley. The whole study group is cheering loudly and piling on top of them, and Troy is covered in hugs and warmth and _home_.

“I love you,” Troy tells them all, with so many feelings it’s like he can’t keep them in his body. And then it feels right, so he hugs Abed tighter, looks right at him, and repeats, “ _I love you_ ,” and hopes that Abed will get it.

“Stay,” Abed says then, half demand and half plea. “Stay here, with me. Or- or if you go again, take me with you.”

“Yes,” Troy agrees immediately, and then he’s kissing Abed right there in the office, and Abed is kissing him back, and it’s better than anything else in the entire world, and at this point Troy should know.

It takes a few seconds for Troy to remember that they are in a seaport lobby, that their friends are so close as to basically be on top of them, and that he is currently pressing Abed against Shirley, who possibly does not appreciate it.

He pulls back, because he has to, and then presses one final quick kiss against Abed’s mouth, because he can, and then he waits for someone else to react.

It’s Annie. “ _Boom_!” she yells, fist-pumping with the hand that’s not currently fisted in Troy’s sleeve. “Pay up!”

Jeff, Britta, and Shirley all groan and pull out their wallets.

“Did you… bet on whether we were going to make out?” Abed asks.

“No,” Britta replies, passing over twenty bucks. “We bet on _when_ you were going to make out. Seriously, you couldn’t have held off for an _hour_?”

“Uh, kinda no,” Troy admits. Britta sighs exasperatedly but also grins at them both.

“Oh, thank god,” LeVar says from behind him. Troy disentangles slightly- but only slightly- to turn and look at him. He’s standing with his family, who are clearly delighted to see him, but significantly more dignified about it than the study group.

“You knew too?” Jeff asks.

“If they didn’t figure it out themselves, I was going to call Abed and ask him to please marry this man and get it over with. Three years of pining is enough.”

“That would have been cool,” Abed says thoughtfully. “Cinematically speaking. Hey, speaking of which, do you want to guest star on my show?”

“No offense, but I don’t want to see any of you for at least a year,” LeVar says nonchalantly.

“Fair enough,” Troy agrees. “Bye, LeVar!” He turns back to the group, grinning a little. They’re still all in a standing hug puddle, and it’s everything Troy’s been missing desperately for three years. Abed is clinging onto him, and Troy is clinging back, and that’s everything Troy’s been missing for pretty much his entire life.

“Welcome back, Troy,” Annie says, fumbling onehanded to get her victory bills into her wallet.

“Thanks. Guys, I’m bisexual,” Troy announces, and it’s- still terrifying, kind of, and his heart is pounding out of fear and joy and enthusiasm. None of them let go.

“Duh- _doy_ ,” Britta replies immediately.

“That’s nice,” Shirley says, and sounds like she means it.

“Yeah, everyone knows,” Annie agrees.

“You’re not as subtle as you think you are,” Jeff says, and it sounds like he’s grousing, but Troy’s pretty sure there’s pride in there. “Also, speaking of which, give me your phone.” Troy hands it over so that Jeff can finally delete those text messages from Copenhagen, which Troy has long-since made backup copies of.

And- and there it is. He’s said it, and they all knew, and they all love him, and in some ways everything is different now, but in other ways, they’re the same. They’re his family.

Troy remembers, again, how hard it was to take off that letterman’s jacket, to let go of that guy he’d spent so much energy to be, and how much better he felt about himself after he had. He feels that again.

After so, so much fear about how they would react, now he’s said it, and they’re all still piled atop him in a welcome-home hug. And he is home, with them. He made them his home, and no matter what beautiful, wonderful, super-cool things he found in the rest of the world, he was always going to come back home eventually. Troy’s so proud of himself for leaving, for taking the chance and being that brave, and he’s so proud of himself for being brave now that he’s back home, too.

“Um,” the receptionist says, sounding a little uncomfortable, “can you all take this elsewhere? We have a large cargo shipment to deal with.”

It takes them a little bit of time to get through the door, because it’s narrow and none of them are quite willing to separate from the others just yet. Abed’s arms are still tightly linked around Troy’s neck, Annie is still clutching his sleeve with one hand and curling close, Shirley keeps reaching from behind Abed’s head to pat Troy’s face and adjust his shirt collar, Britta has an arm around Troy’s waist and a dangerously sharp chin jutting into his shoulder,

“When I make a movie based on this,” Abed muses merrily, “I’m going to change this location. To something with fewer fake potted plants.”

“Okay,” Troy agrees, wandering happily out and happily Out. “As long as the ending stays the same.”

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this has been my first Community fic! Hope you enjoyed. 
> 
> To those of you who have left kudos/comments so far, thank you, you delight me.


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